Many students at Somerset-Berkley are facing the pressures of entering the workforce during the school year or becoming independent to provide for their own car, gas, or to start saving up for college.  My parents began to pressure me to start looking for jobs when I was nominated for a National Journalism Conference.  At first, I was excited to begin looking for jobs because I thought it could be a great experience to get a glimpse of the real world.  However, I began to understand that having a job would give me limited time to do my homework, which was alarming because I take two Advanced Placement courses and have barely any free time as it is.  The Breeze sat down with some Somerset-Berkley students who describe their part-time jobs, how they have found the balance between school and work, and their experiences as first-timers in the workforce.

Sydney Mis, a junior at SBRHS, works 16 hours on the weekend at Dunkin’ Donuts in Berkley. “I usually have to wake up around 5 or 6 am depending on the day, and then I work for eight hours and come home,” says Sydney. Sydney applied for a job at Dunkin’ Donuts because her sister had worked there and she loved Dunkin’ Donuts, so it seemed like the perfect fit.  Sydney said that she did not “want to rely on my parents for money all the time. I wanted to be responsible with money and be independent with it.” The job has taught her how to multitask and how to handle money for the present and the future. Having a job and maintaining good grades is all about time management, says Sydney. She plans out her weekends and which days she does certain assignments to accommodate all the work she needs to complete for Monday morning. Sydney advises students to get part-time jobs “as long as you can handle it.” Getting a job has made Sydney realize that she can handle much more than she thought she could, and has actually made her “feel less stressed about school.”

Joshua Treeful, a junior at Somerset-Berkley, works for his uncle at a lawn and home care company called BSV Maintenance in Fall River on the weekends. Josh usually works “anywhere from 10 to 16 hours” on the weekends almost every single week. Josh’s incentive for applying for a job was to pay for his truck. “I just got my license a couple weeks ago,” he says. Although Josh is not interested in going into landscaping in the future, his job is helpful because “I know how to take good care of lawns, so if I want to take care of my own lawn, I won’t have to pay anybody else.” Josh maintains a balance between school and work by taking it “one class at a time.” His advice to people looking for jobs but worried about managing their time is to “get all your work done first, then you can relax.” However, Josh explains that it is difficult to handle all of the homework he gets with his job.

Syerra Carmone, a junior at SBRHS, works five days a week (weekdays and weekends) at Taco Bell. Her schedule changes with the hours that she is working. For example, if she is working after school at 3 pm, she will get home at 9 pm and take a shower and start doing her homework. “I’ll probably do homework until 11 pm and then wake up at 6 am,” says Syerra. Other days, she begins work at 4 pm, so she will rush home and do some of her homework before heading off to her job. She works about 24 hours a week and says that she started applying for jobs because “I needed to pay my car insurance.” Syerra applied to almost thirty places, sticking mostly to retail at first, but shifted towards food later on. She then applied to Party City, which is located right next to Taco Bell. Syerra says that “I thought ‘Why don’t I just apply to Taco Bell? It’s right there!’” Her job at Taco Bell has taught her to multitask. She has also learned a lot about people and how to deal with them in real-world scenarios: “It’s the real world and you have to get over what other people think because you have to keep going,” says Syerra. “If someone calls me stupid at work, I can’t just go in the back room and cry, I have to continue to take the orders.” She has been able to maintain decent grades, but some of the grades she has are the result of not being able to have time to read and study. If Syerra did not have work, she would probably have better grades. She advises students to not let their job take over their life because “you’re in high school and you want to focus on your high school experience more than your job.”

Tim Cabral is a junior at Somerset-Berkley, and works three days a week–Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays–at Walgreens in Fall River. After school, Tim works for 6 hours. “Usually after I get out of school I would go home, take a shower, but by that time I already have to get ready for work,” says Tim. “There’s no doing homework, there’s no doing anything.” He usually spends one to two hours doing homework after he gets out of work at 10 pm. Tim has found a balance between school and work by using all of his time: “There’s little to no free time; it’s always: school, homework, work.” He advises students to use all of their free time because grades are paramount in high school. Lastly, the most important thing that Tim has learned in his job is that people are not always in the greatest positions. “Here in Somerset we don’t see the lowest of the low,” says Tim. As soon as he started his job, he discovered people were stealing all the time. “I actually had to clean feces off of a wall in the bathroom because somebody spread it,” says Tim. Just across the Taunton River, people are living in the poorest of conditions.

By taking on part-time jobs during the school year, students are forced into situations they have never experienced before. These experiences are both scary and exciting, but provide excellent opportunities for glimpses of the real world. It also allows young adults to obtain first-hand experience in how the world really works–something that many students do not acquire in their everyday lives. However, Sydney, Josh, Syerra, and Tim all agree that jobs are only beneficial to people who can handle their time wisely. Receiving good grades is the “job” of every high school student and of the utmost importance.